Thread: Vista sucks -- Article

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My brother bought a new computer a few months ago with Vista on it. Unbelievably, the OS got stuck on a never-ending loop. It would boot up, encounter an error, and automatically shut down, ad infinitum.

He switched to Linux.

Originally Posted by Replicon

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Originally Posted by R.D.735

My brother bought a new computer a few months ago with Vista on it. Unbelievably, the OS got stuck on a never-ending loop. It would boot up, encounter an error, and automatically shut down, ad infinitum.

He switched to Linux.

That crap happened to me too. I hate Vista.

Vista has many problems,
and not all of them are fixable

Ignoring the whole DRM issue (I feel I've said enough about that in the past)

A lot of the problems stem from the whole "Windows philosophy" that's so ingrained in both the MS developers and 3rd party software writers

Windows has always been a consumer desktop OS
(yes, the windows server versions exist - but seriously, come on - it's a desktop OS)

problem is, for the last 3-5 years, desktop machines and servers have been slowly merging

Desktop machines are becoming little mini servers
and *nix is far more capable than windows in these situations

how many people used more than one CPU in a desktop machine 5 years ago - no one
but clock speeds have near flat-lined
We've reached the peak of current CPU speeds
so parallel processing is now on the desktop

The whole philosophy of windows has been to load the newest version with big, enticing features. The early adopters complain its slow, but the main bulk of sales come from new, faster systems with windows pre-installed

This doesn't work anymore, as CPU speeds are not increasing, and Windows (and the vast majority of 3rd party software) are not efficient at parallel processing.

You probably wouldn't notice any speed difference between a single core 3Gz CPU and a quad-core 3Gz CPU
The code frameworks for efficient parallel processing are just not available for the majority of windows developers to utilize

True, Windows it not designed for servers, but I believe that *nix still dominates the server world.

MS (Linux developers too ) have to learn to harness the power of those multiple cores, it's not quite as simple as splitting up the threads because then there are concurrency issues. When running an OS specifically designed for multiple cores you can really see a speed difference.

Theoretical speeds have been nearly reached, as has the minimum size of silicon chips. They can't just keep piling on more and more cores, something big has to change soon.

The next ten year in computer science is going to be interesting. I think changes of the magnitude that we will see will drop Microsoft because of their business strategy.

They are entirely reliant on other companies to create hardware, and those companies are reliant on MS to give them the OS. This cycle makes evolution slow and big jumps all but impossible. I think in the very near future we will see the rise of another company that creates hardware and software. Someone's going to have a brilliant idea and use it.

Quick question: Does Vista's activation policy look exactly like XP's? Luckily, I have only one XP PC at home, but I remember feeling insulted that if I'm gonna lay down like $300 for an OS, I can't even install it on ALL of my fxcking PC's at home. If MS had somehow figured out how to enforce this back in the windows 3.1 days, they would not be in business today.

I think they have a family pack that can be installed on 5 computers.

That's good to hear, assuming it's no more than $20 more (total) for the 4 extra licenses. Demanding? hell ya!

Originally Posted by Replicon

That's good to hear, assuming it's no more than $20 more (total) for the 4 extra licenses. Demanding? hell ya!

Vista Business (single license) = £82.48
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...11168,49030000

Vista Business (3 license multi-pack) = £247.34
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...11168,49030000

The multi-pack saves you a massive 10 pence.....

Ok... I hope these vista bashers have USED vista. I love it. There there is one main issue that I have with vista that is the lack of compatibility with older software, especially games. I agree with people here on that. But in every other way, vista beats XP. I can't think of one way that XP is better than vista. Everything I did with XP is simpler and easier with Vista. And that video is wrong. How did they come up with no anti-virus software? I have AVG and McAfee. I have never gotten a virus on vista. I really can't agree that it "sucks".

I have had arguments with vista haters before and surprise, surprise, they have never used it. They were all jealous. I hope no one here falls into that category.

Just for the record, I work with Macs, and they are good in their own way as well, so don't call me a windows fanboy.

Originally Posted by Rasenganxxchidori

Ok... I hope these vista bashers have USED vista. I love it. There there is one main issue that I have with vista that is the lack of compatibility with older software, especially games. I agree with people here on that. But in every other way, vista beats XP. I can't think of one way that XP is better than vista. Everything I did with XP is simpler and easier with Vista. And that video is wrong. How did they come up with no anti-virus software? I have AVG and McAfee. I have never gotten a virus on vista. I really can't agree that it "sucks".

I have had arguments with vista haters before and surprise, surprise, they have never used it. They were all jealous. I hope no one here falls into that category.

Just for the record, I work with Macs, and they are good in their own way as well, so don't call me a windows fanboy.

I used to use vista. I hated it. I use XP & Ubuntu now.

Why would i be jealous of a an overpriced box of slow-down-your-computer, and many-security-holes.

My parents use vista, and they hate it, too. They aren't even computer people!

std::

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

My parents use vista, and they hate it, too. They aren't even computer people!

I can't do a darn thing with my new computer. I can't save a document or make bookmarks. It's terrible. I wish I hadn't bought a new computer. The only thing I can do is get on the internet. Windows sucks but Vista really really sucks.

Not a computer person obviously.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

I hated it.

Why would i be jealous of a an overpriced box of slow-down-your-computer, and many-security-holes.

Slow down your computer... My vista machine works very well with 2 gigs of ram. Many Security holes? like what? Please educate me on this. You know,you CAN use other anti-virus stuff than windows defender. I think it's good of microsoft to include a free shield.

Originally Posted by Seismosaur

My parents use vista, and they hate it, too. They aren't even computer people!

std::

I bought vista for my dad for his birthday, and he likes it way more than XP. I don't see why your parents would hate it. If they're not computer people, then they probably wouldn't play games. I then see no reason why they would dislike it because games are the only beef I have with vista. Vista surpasses XP in every other way besides game compatibility.

Originally Posted by Rasenganxxchidori

Slow down your computer... My vista machine works very well with 2 gigs of ram. Many Security holes? like what? Please educate me on this. You know,you CAN use other anti-virus stuff than windows defender. I think it's good of microsoft to include a free shield.

I have 2 points to make here:

1.) My ubuntu box (laptop) is completely full. There is NO hard-drive space left (Well, maybe 10 kb), it has 256mb ram, and multi tasks 100% better than my XP and 234²e times better than vista.

2.) Windows defender doesn't catch anything. (I am not lying) it is one of the worst anti-virus and Security shield programs i have EVER seen/used. Period. When i boot with Ubuntu, i don't have any kind of anti virus. I don't need it, because it's extremely hard for someone to phish with an .exe on a *nix system.

"Microsoft isn't evil, they just make really, really crappy Operating Systems" ~ Linus Torvalds

Oh, and it is also recognized that Microsoft is falling apart under it's own weight.

Even a dude who has written Book on Visual Basic, and DirectX can see this: linky

It seems that the larger an organization becomes, the less it is able to coordinate it’s activities and falls under the ”left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing” syndrome. This is certainly the case with Microsoft in recent years. The world’s largest software company seems to be teetering under it’s own massive weight, unable to create working software without massive piles of bugs–along with leaves, dirt, rodent droppings, twigs, and rusty scrap metal.

Okay, I messed up the analogy, but I’m trying to be reasonable when I really just want to call up someone at Microsoft and scream at them for five minutes. But if I were to do that, some poor fellow with a funky accent in New Delhi will have to visit his or her Hindu temple at the end of the day to expunge all of the negativity I bestowed upon them, since I’ll never get to actually speak with anyone at Microsoft.

So what’s the problem–what’s with all the honking? I’m exasperated with Microsoft’s software. I’m experiencing stress headaches and hypertension because the hassles of modern software development just won’t let up. Everywhere I turn, it’s another service pack or security update or release candidate or beta test. When software is actually released (let the marketing goons go on the offensive!) does it work out of the box? Occasionally. Sometimes. As long as you don’t allow Windows Update to actually run, then download some new service pack or patch or band-aid or splint, and install it on your hapless PC, thus rendering it only forward compatible from that day hence with most of your existing software.

Microsoft is, in day-to-day operation, behaving like a schizophrenic with ADHD–experiencing conversations with imagined people, while getting on their nerves with hyperactivity, all the while completely ignoring the real world. That’s Microsoft in a nutshell trying to keep 50,000 programmers and other members of the peonic elite busy on a daily basis. All of that momentum, keeping the ship moving, without remembering the destination…

I remember a time when Microsoft created good software. It was a longggg time ago, back in the dark ages for most young people, but a lot of those in my generation who recall the early days of the PC industry will recall a day when quality was more important than quantity because software companies at that time operated on a different premise: Not that 50,000 programmers must be kept busy churning out garbage year after year, but that a few dozen or a few hundred programmers worked hard on a software package either to unleash it on the PC industry for the first time, or to update a beloved application with user-requested features and productivity improvements. Today, Microsoft is so monstrously off it’s rocker it’s own software development teams are not even communicating needs to each other and ensuring that software packages are designed to work together.

A few years ago, back in 2004, I complained quite a bit that Microsoft was abandoning a long-held tradition of providing backwards compatibility in it’s software. Each new version of MS-DOS was supposed to support all previous software built for prior versions of MS-DOS. So, as a developer working on an application for MS-DOS 3.0, you could count on it still running under MS-DOS 5.0. And that is exactly how things worked back then. In the 1990s, Microsoft worked very hard to make sure 16-bit Windows 3 applications would still run under the new Windows 95 operating system. That was a huge concern in the PC industry.

Read more on linky... (Fifth article down, titled (Windows, again killing backwards compatibility)

std::

My suitemate got Vista on a laptop with the minimum required 2 GB of ram. At first she was quite excited by all the neat little graphics and whatnot... but it has been painfully slow and needless to say she is no longer impressed.

Rasenganxxchidori, you are getting quite defensive about this system which is proven to be very faulty - my guess is it's just because you had to shell out a bunch of cash for it.

People don't seem to understand how little pretty graphics for vista fits into the equation. Pretty graphics are available on all new operating systems and Vista has the worst of the 3.

Vista vs. Ubuntu + Beryl

leopard

both run on just about as much RAM as Vista with Aero disabled. They also multi-task better because of the unix system and all that fun stuff.

Originally Posted by arby

People don't seem to understand how little pretty graphics for vista fits into the equation. Pretty graphics are available on all new operating systems and Vista has the worst of the 3.

Vista vs. Ubuntu + Beryl

leopard

both run on just about as much RAM as Vista with Aero disabled. They also multi-task better because of the unix system and all that fun stuff.

, yup, yup.

std::

I can tell you that for someone with my needs, Vista is a bad choice; It is very well known that it is not a solid choice for those building a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), as I recently did. There is plenty of documentation and anectdotal evidence to support this.

I'm pretty much tied to XP for now, having thousands of dollars worth of software and libraries on my machine. I don't mind it so much, as it is running ok, but I do have a problem with MS in general.

The problem is that they assume they know exactly what the user needs, and what the user needs to know. The first time I tried to turn off auto-first line capitalization in MS Word, I almost started throwing things. Why is it on by default? Why is the method of turning it off so buried and difficult to find? Just one of many, many examples, where MS thinks they know better than the end user.

Originally Posted by skysaw

Why is it on by default?

I can understand that though.. most users would want that as default. I didn't know it was so difficult to turn off though.. hmmm.. I've never actually tried. Is it on the new Word version? Let me know cuz I have a very close friend who is directly responsible for MS Word.

Originally Posted by Mes Tarrant

I can understand that though.. most users would want that as default. I didn't know it was so difficult to turn off though.. hmmm.. I've never actually tried. Is it on the new Word version? Let me know cuz I have a very close friend who is directly responsible for MS Word.

hurt them...

J/K.. XD

but did it take anyone else a couple hours to locate the print button in that piece of junk that claims its software??

Originally Posted by arby

hurt them...

J/K.. XD

but did it take anyone else a couple hours to locate the print button in that piece of junk that claims its software??

Uh, no. It's on the standard toolbar. With the icon... Of a printer :-\

Ribbon - the Marmite of menus

The ribbon is extremely anti-intuitive. I really like onenote, and the next edition is supposed to have the ribbon on it as well. It will be a sad day.